Welcome to my new Bag Lady Blog! There will be many tales of adventure, exploration, learning and probably a great deal of whinging here. I hope maybe it will help at least one person in the same position as I am… but then, I’m on a pretty good dose of dilaudid, so I may just be babbling nonsense most of the time. Hard to say.
Today, for example, will be a tale of trial and tribulation… in my mind, at least. Bathing. Specifically, washing my hair, the most difficult part of the process. How can this be, you ask? Shampooing is such a simple activity, you insist? Well, my friend, sit down and hear my song of sorrow.
First, allow me to note that I did shower in the hospital. I sort of remember being wrapped up in plastic and sat in a bench chair in the middle of an entire room the size of a large closet whose entire purpose was bathing and showering. I remember (I had a lot more dilaudid then, along with a metric ton of Xanax to stave off the panic that seemed to catch some mutant hospital bug) sitting there, crying, getting all wet. Then there were a number of occasions where the nurses treated me to the much more pleasant “dry” shampoo bag. A great invention of humankind, I must say. For those who are unfamiliar, the nurse wets the appliance, which is like a shower cap, then covers as much of your hair as they can and give you a good massage (if you’re lucky. If you have a crap nurse, they just dig grooves in your skull as fast as they can and leave you crying… again. I count myself VERY lucky that in two months, two hospitals, and a dozen nurses at least, I ran into maybe two or three who clearly could not give a crap or who were actively hostile. Every other one was an absolute angel and made me feel truly safe and cared for.) and you just comb it out and let it dry. Voila! Clean hair with no water.
So I’m still in this psychological space where I’m very afraid to get my wound or bag wet, especially with our yucky well water. I’ve been bathing my body every couple of days with a classic whore’s bath (sponge bath), which has passed just fine… as far as I can tell. I’m pretty sure I stink because of my bag (probably irrational) anyway, so what’s the difference? But that has left my hair getting nastier by the day. Finally, it’s gotten to the perfect storm point: I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and my hair had gotten to a point that I couldn’t stand anymore.
So there I was with the question: how could my paranoia about getting my wound and bag wet coexist with my need to have clean hair? Well, it involved a shower bench, three towels (including a hand towel — very important), a Mickey Mouse poncho from 1989, a roll of Saran Wrap, a roll of tape, and the necessary shampoo, conditioner, and comb.
I’ll let you listen to your imagination for a minute before I tell you how those things actually go together.
Let’s see if you put it together right. First, I cut a square of Saran Wrap and taped it over my abdomen, making a semi-sealed cover over ostomy bag and wound paraphanalia. Just in case. Then I wrapped the poncho around my torso, tucked under my arms and pulled up high on my neck, hand towel wrapped around said neck. Sat on the shower bench with my back facing the shower head (Mom assisting, shower head detachable), wet head very carefully so only the back of body gets any spray. Wash with shampoo, rinse. Remove poncho, pat everything dry just in case, peel off Saran Wrap. Spray on conditioner, comb out, done.
Viola! But let me tell you, the execution was a great deal less tidy than the story makes it sound. There was shouting and sniping, throwing and dropping things, water everywhere. Eventually the job got done, but like everything else these days, it seems, there was just a whole lot of extra hassle surrounding it. It’s exhausting, and yet it turned out okay… and frankly, in retrospect, hilarious. I mean, a poncho with Mickey Mouse on it? And yet, it was a good idea. Now that we know how to do it, it will go better next time.
That’s a huge part of what it means to be an ostomate — the learning curve on pretty much everything.
So welcome to my madness! I hope you get something from hearing about my adventures in the Bag Lady lifestyle. It includes ponchos, Saran Wrap, and medical tape!
We need it!
Holy Bag Lady! 